Advanced Data vs. Canvas vs. Schoology Learning

If you have a school you can let teachers easily create new deadlines which [automatically] get shown in the calendar. Teachers can also [temporarily] hide deadlines [until] they've given the explanation about the tasks. [Besides] that the teacher can also choose what should be uploaded, should it be a link, file, pdf, link,...

Schoology does the job well enough, but there are enough areas of contention that make advanced use of the system unwieldy. District staff does not have easy reporting ability to determine adoption and use of the platform without having to export to another program for analysis. The reliability of the system is a huge pain point as we need to deliver the curriculum but cannot count on it being available when we need to use it.

Incentivized

• Learning management - Even as the educational landscape rapidly shifts due to current events, Canvas is a great LMS for providing a consistent learning environment for students.
• Mobile accessibility - Students can access their courses on Canvas from a variety of devices, including their smartphones.
• Rich content - Instructors have the ability to create dynamic and engaging content for their courses.

Incentivized

• Customer Service is amazing. If there is something that doesn't see to work, the customer service department is there to help! The help and support page is comprehensive.
• It is easy to embed various programs, web site and apps into this one LMS platform. This makes if very easy to customize.
• Improvements and modifications are constantly being made. The company stays ahead of current trends.
• Organization of courses and groups is easy, with many an endless amount of possibilities available for creation.

• Their integration with Big Blue Button was a bust for distance learning. Would be great to see them collaborate with Zoom or Google Meets.
• Their "feature request" process is slow and cumbersome at times because it relies on user "up votes" to get ideas addressed by the developers.
• They seem to have a lot of turn-over with their staff. We get a new Customer Success Manager far more frequently than with other vendors.

Incentivized

• The test banks in the personal resources need to be more functional. The ability to be able to create folders for a course and insert multiple test banks within that folder for different units of the same course would be more efficient. Being able to add colors to different folders would also make it easier to identify which course teachers were looking for and separate test and quizzes from the unit and final exams. It would be nice if the tracking of the test banks could be turned on and off so that graphs, charts, political cartoons, and other images could be changed without the need to necessarily change the question. For example, using red for US History, blue for World History, green for Economics, black for Government then within each folder quizzes could be orange, unit exams could be yellow, and finals exams could be purple under each course, or whatever color made sense to the teacher.
• The graphing capabilities in assessments need to be more functional outside of math. It would be nice if geography students could create population graphs that would include inverted x and y-axis charts to the left of a regular x and y-axis chart with the ability to add age ranges in between them and then have bar graphs going both directions. Economic students need to be able to create dot line charts that curve to demonstrate supply, demand, and equilibrium charts. These also need both the x and y-axis so that price and quantity can be included. Bar graphs need to be able to have multiple bars in groupings so that students can compare the different measurements of GDP across multiple countries. Graphing isn't only for math.

Several factors contribute to my "10" rating. First, our university just made an enormous switch to Canvas, after we were with Blackboard for almost a decade. So garnering buy-in was critical, and not something we took lightly. After nearly 18 months (start to finish) of training faculty, educating stakeholders, and migrating courses, I am not looking to make a change again anytime soon. But I am happy with the result and the product overall and that is also demonstrated in my rating.

While we have taken time to re-evaluate our selected 1:1 devices, Schoology's impact on student learning is unquestioned. Students are able to connect with other learners, create and share products of their learning, and develop their digital fluency through their use of Schoology.

The functions in Canvas are well integrated and consistent across the application, and mostly intuitive. Overall navigation and setup is streamlined through integrated features and navigation. The feedback we've gotten from our program participants is that it is easy to learn to use. It also integrates well with third party software like Google Docs and Blackboard Collaborate web conferencing software

Incentivized

It's very easy to use Schoology. As with any LMS, it helps to learn some tips and tricks prior to getting started. But, each item is clearly indicated within the platform. If I want to add materials, it is right at the top of my screen. If I want to view the calendar, it is indicated to the right of my screen. Navigating a course and the platform is quite straightforward. Additionally, the benefit of Schoology's help center and user community makes asking and answering questions quick and easy.

Generally good, but issue self-reporting has become a problem. When there are issues, it can be 20 minutes to an hour before it gets noted on the status page

Course saves or transfers can take several minutes and up to an hour

I do not personally use Canvas support since we have a central office that helps us. However, our central office always has the answers we need and are always able to solve our issues - so I would assume that get great support from the Canvas team on their end. They also offer great training, which uses materials directly from Canvas

Incentivized

We have county-level support and district-level support, but their HELP page offers everything that is needed to answer questions and to find "how-to" information for staff. This includes video and written directions for every available feature. Schoology has also worked with our district to improve their product.

The training sessions were broken down into several days as well as different levels depending upon the knowledge of the user

Incentivized

Too surface level with no follow-up. A

The online tutorials and videos are very clear and addressed the issues/questions that I had about using the system.

Incentivized

Sit and get with very little hands-on time. 5 minutes to try out a feature/question type, etc. is not enough time. Once your training is done, there is no option for new employees to get that training without having to rebook and pay for the training again. If you pay for basic training, that should be available to a district to use in the future.

Once you purchase and sign the contract there is nothing to install or hardware to buy. You can almost immediately start using it and have courses up and going within weeks. We signed in December and had pilot courses online ready to go for the start of school in January

Incentivized

Canvas is in the experience way better than Google Classroom. Canvas has a
more robust agenda system that also allows adding in new personal
deadlines. [Assignments] can be submitted past [the] deadline (if allowed),
this isn't allowed by Google [Classroom], If you're too late you can't
submit anything anymore. In Classroom [assignments], presentations/theory, and [announcements] are all put in 1 feed instead which gets confusing way
faster.

Incentivized

As mentioned before, Schoology has a lot more capabilities than Google Classroom. Granted that Schoology is an actual LMS and Google Classroom is not. Assessments are better; guardian views and information; communication with our Student Information System; Better organization of files and assignments. I find Canvas & Blackboard difficult to navigate and understand

Incentivized

We use it 5-12 so scalability is not an issue but sharing materials between departments including common assessments is difficult without paying for add-on features

• Teachers have consolidated their content onto one platform which has decreased reliance of students on so much support staff assistance to access content.
• Canvas has helped make technology transitions more seamless for the school community.
• Once teachers have set up their page, Canvas really takes care of it all- they have much more time to focus on content creation and synthesis rather than the actual learning management system.

Incentivized

• Schoology has had a positive impact on my classroom because it allows me to easily organize content as well as assign content based on the specific needs/wants of my students.
• Schoology has had a positive impact on my classroom management because it allows me to easily embed everything my students need with no reason for them to leave the LMS and venture out on the wider internet.

Incentivized